Self-Managed Healthcare Cooperatives

= A cooperative approach to healthcare that builds on social networks is a natural adjunct to traditional medical practices.

Example

Bernard Marszalek:

"Some of the most creative approaches to self-managed healthcare are happening in Japan. There consumer coops manage a 50 year-old network of hospitals, clinics and rehabilitation centers. Nearly three million members control 120 cooperatives. This community-led approach involves collaboration with caregivers and professionals to strive for effective health prevention practices.

“Within a context of disease prevention,” reports the journal Making Waves, “each clinic’s reputation rests on how healthy its members are, not on how many prescriptions its staff write or procedures they perform.” 5

Preventive care in these Japanese co-ops depends on affinity groups of neighbors, who meet on a monthly basis to assist each other in a healthy regimen of practices involving exercise, diet and simple lab work testing. This group called Han, not the family, is the basic unit of preventive healthcare." (http://jasecon.wik.is/Analysis/Self-managed_Healthcare_for_all)